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Many people are able to recognize the personality traits of the person they are talking to by their facial features. Experts in non-verbal communication can do this even with a photograph. But is it possible to teach artificial intelligence to do the same?

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people around the world have faced an unprecedented crisis. The cataclysm has impacted Russia as well. Who will better deal the hardships—experienced baby boomers, Gen Xers who survived the 1990s, or Gen Yers who have had an easy life?

In lockdowns, why do some people stay home, while others violate the quarantine rules and go out for picnics in the park? Behavioural economics may provide the answer to this question. Oksana Zinchenko, a Research Fellow of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, explains how we can predict people’s behaviour with game theory.

The paper is focused on the practical issues connected to the organization of Russian hunting expeditions to Spitsbergen in the 18th c. including some administrative regulation of Spitsbergen shipping. Using the wide range of archival materials, the authors study the social status and geographical origin of organizers and participants of Spitsbergen hunting. The hunting expeditions were organized by both private persons and institutions, and the town-dwellers were the most numerous group of the organizers. Among the institutions the monopolistic trade companies established under Peter the Great rule for the colonization of the region played a significant role. The organization of expedition required large investment and included a number of mandatory bureaucratic procedures. The core of the hunting teams consisted of professional hunters who mainly were born in several well-defined zones of the White Sea coastal area. The crew was usually recruited from the relatively small part of the population who for different reasons were excluded from the communal economy typical for the Pomor peasantry. From the archival sources it is calculated that the shipping to Spitsbergen was about only 1% of the total commercial shipping in the White and Barents Sea basins excluding foreign vessels.